Before a dozen newcomers made their entry into the self-driving space, Tesla was leading the pack in the development of fully autonomous vehicles. But what set the Elon Musk-owned company apart from the rest of the chasing pack was the use of cameras and sensors rather than LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) laser measuring technology. Now, even Toyota Motor’s unit Woven Planet is joining Tesla in ditching LiDAR.
For starters, most companies working on autonomous vehicles these days – including Ford, GM Cruise, Uber and Waymo – accept LiDAR as an essential part of the sensor suite. Tesla, on the other hand, has been an advocate of intelligent visual solutions. Even Woven Planet’s parent company Toyota to an extent still uses multiple sensors such as lidars and radars for robotaxis and other autonomous vehicles to be deployed on the road.
Woven Planet told Reuters it is able to advance self-driving technology without expensive sensors such as LiDAR and use low-cost cameras instead, to collect data and effectively train its self-driving system. It is a “breakthrough” that Woven Planet hopes will help drive down costs and scale up the technology.
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